Marga Richter’s Variations and Interludes on Themes
from Monteverdi and Bach is designated as a single
movement. Helpfully Leonarda has tracked this into eleven segments.
This helps with study and assimilation. The Prologue from Monteverdi’s
Orfeo was used as the foundation for this set alongside
Bach’s C Major Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier.
The always tonal and fresh music runs to a minute more than
three-quarters of an hour. It is magnificently serious (Cello
Cadenza) and this is is completely in keeping with the points
of origin. The music is grand (the Var 3a-5, limpid (Chorale
4-6, Trio Cadenza, Piano Cadenza), imaginatively glittering,
cold, strange and flightily prim (Violin Cadenza), imperiously
urgent Var 6-7 and finally serene and rounded in its oratory.
Interestingly the work was originally titled “… beside the
still waters”. The three soloists seem, as far as one can
tell, to be completely in tune with the music; nothing grates.
The movements of the Richter are:-
1. Introduction, Theme, Var. 1-3 [3:32]
2. Var. 3a, 3b, Interlude, Var. 4 (Chaconne) -5 [6:15]
3. Var. 6-7, Interlude, Chorale 1-3 [5:14]
4. Two before Chorale 4, - Chorale 6, Var. 8-9 (Fantasy) [4:32]
5. Var. 9 (cont), Var. 10 [4:00]
6. Trio Cadenza [3:20]
7. Cello Cadenza [4:46]
8. Violin Cadenza (Part I) [2:55]
9. Violin Cadenza (Part II), begin Piano Cadenza [2:42]
10. Piano Cadenza (cont), Interlude (tutti) Var. 11-12 [6:03]
11. Chorale 7-9, Theme, Coda [2:54]
12. Stately [3:05]
13. Sweetly, Flowing, Simply, Sweetly, Quirky, Flowing [6:09]
14. Explosive [4:00]
15. With a Latin Feel [1:52]
16. Hymnlike, Mad Procession, Serioso/Explosive; Hallucinatory
[4:55]
17. With Dignity, Quasi Religioso [3:47]
18. Restless, Stately, Celebratory [3:15]
Howard Harris studied at Juilliard with Sessions, Carter and
Hall Overton. His half hour one movement Musicke for
Dauncing Judicially is a saxophone concerto. It is
tracked in seven segments. The inspiration came from a re-reading
of Hesse’s Steppenwolf. The music explores the tension
between jazz and the baroque music that forms the object of
adulation for Hesse’s hero. The jazz is, by and large, voiced
by Gilbert Sabitzer’s alto saxophone – I never became aware
of the other members of the Carinthian Sax Quartet. The music’s
grave and even melancholic mien fits adroitly with the austere
beauties of the Richter. The harpsichord stalks Harris’s pages
which are sometimes fraught with dense-woven complexity. The
synergy and conflict between classical sources and jazz in all
its slinky wonderment are sold for all they are worth – magnificently
so at the start of the Quasi Religioso. The stately
finale at times touches on similar moments of Handel and Gabrieli
in Hovhaness. Nyman also came to mind once or twice though I
can assure readers that this is by no means a minimalist piece.
Rob Barnett
See also earlier review
by Paul Shoemaker.
Renata Knific (violin); Pamela Frame (cello); Robert Weirich (piano);
Gilbert Sabitzer (alto saxophone); Carinthian Saxophone Quartet.